


Hell Hath no Fury like a Hacker Scorned

by SylverFletcher



Series: Carmen and Player being best friends and crime buddies fight me let my kids be happy [3]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Friendship, Gen, Memes, Player gets back at vile for being jerks to his bud, Political Jokes, Trolling, inaccurate computer mojo, unrealistic hacking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 20:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17587922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylverFletcher/pseuds/SylverFletcher
Summary: Carmen is injured and resting, safe with Player right by her side. But the hacker can't get over how upset he is with her former family for everything they've done to her, and decides to take matters into his own hands in the only way he knows how.Or, the story where Player hacks VILE Academy just to torment the faculty by taking over their screens and speakers to play whatever terrible meme he wants, on repeat.





	Hell Hath no Fury like a Hacker Scorned

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten overwhelming support on this series and let me just say I love you all who commented on the last two fics. To everyone who raised their hand to Player getting back at VILE for hurting his friend, here ya go.

Let it be known that Player was  _ not _ a vengeful person.

He had never held a grudge, never felt a need to ‘get back’ at someone for anything. He was content to leave everything of that manner up to fate, or his friends, and let them decide when or what was worthy of a reaction. While he, himself, could relax and not let the actions of others get to him. It was a comfortable mindset, and he preferred it.

But even the most patient of people had their boundaries, their breaking points, and Player was no different. He was still a teenager, after all, a powerful one at that, and everyone knew a teenager wronged would do everything in their power to get back the upper hand.

Also, they were villains. This was just fair, and totally not personal at all, totally. He was just doing his job.

He checked again that Carmen was sound asleep in his bed, before turning back to his screen. He could do this, be over and done with, before anyone else woke up and knew a thing. Considering he was  _ just _ a hacker, there wasn’t anything else he could do, a fact that bothered him a bit too much. These people had put his best friend through so much, and he could never do anything to them directly to make up for that.

But this, this he could do, and it would have to be good enough.

* * *

 

At first, everything within the Academy on the Isle of V.I.L.E. ran smoothly as ever, not a single thing out of place. The students went from class to class just like any other day, the faculty keeping idle watch over them while each sort of doing their own thing. No missions underway or planned for the day, and while their previous encounter with their former favorite child had gone awry, at least for the moment there was nothing she could screw up, considering she hadn’t been spotted in weeks.

No, this was a perfect day for the school’s headmasters to relax and work on their personal projects, without a care in the world until their next scheme.

At least, it was. For a time.

The first thing that went wrong was the sprinkler system, in the cafeteria, at lunch time. Maybe someone burned something, or the smoke detectors were just on the fritz, but either way, five angry teachers now had a few dozen drenched and whining teenagers and a cafeteria that looked like it’d been hit with a tsunami to deal with.

And sure, that was annoying, but it happens. They just sent the kids off to clean themselves up, and the janitors to clean the large room, and went back to minding their own business. No school or business building or even home was free from the occasional faulty mechanical thing needing replaced. They didn’t think much of it.

Then, only half an hour after that first happened, some of the lights burned out. Or, a lot of them. Half the hallways in the school just suddenly went dark, leaving half the students to think some sort of test was going on, and more annoyed teachers telling them to move on with their day while the janitors fixed the lights.

Then Dr Bellum got locked out of her Netflix account.

“Someone is messing with us!” She ended up yelling, shaking her fancy tablet in Dr Maelstrom’s face, to which he just grimaced and pushed the device away.

“Are you sure you didn’t just put your password in wrong too many times again?”

Countess Cleo was the next to look over with an annoyed expression at the yelling, and add on with, “Technically, you shouldn’t even have that. Your constant videos are a bad influence on our students.”

“You can’t take my soaps away from me.” The now de-Netflix’d Dr grumbled back, but did give up on the bricked account and went for cat videos instead.

Of course, Youtube was now banned on their internet.

Both of the other teachers were pretty sure they went deaf at the noise she made then.

It only kept going downhill from there. The announcement speakers around the school started buzzing static for awhile, before playing on repeat a song some of the students explained as being a meme. About three repeats in, all of the adults were considering ripping out their own eardrums, and the students weren’t far behind.

The few high tech screens all over campus were next. The ones with maps of the school, or classes, or grades, all suddenly flickered to an extremely cringy and extremely  _ long _ video montage of a kid narrating their adventures through Minecraft, complete with voice crack screaming whenever he fought a monster, and a lot of really bad jokes repeated a few too many times.

Countess Cleo’s phone was next. At full volume, at first it sounded as if it was ringing. But it soon turned out to actually be what seemed to be playing a constant advert channel, like paid programming on TV at five in the morning, except all it did was loudly play audio commercials for… less than savory products, or at least ones the students didn’t need to be hearing about. And of course, she couldn’t get past the lock screen, which was now rejecting her password or freezing half the time, and she couldn’t change the volume.

Shadowsan ended up throwing it out the window.

Meanwhile, Coach Brunt was getting the worst of it. Her phone began pinging off with notifications left and right, almost giving itself a seizure with how often it was buzzing, and she glared at the screen with the most confused expression once it did finally unlock. “The hell is ‘Tinder’ and how’d it end up on my phone?” She demanded, causing Dr Maelstrom to choke on his coffee.

“What… what notifications is it sending?”

The burly woman was unimpressed, and more than a little uncomfortable as she replied with, “It’s all women flirtin’ with me.”

“Who is doing this?!” Countess Cleo finally demanded, turning to Dr Bellum, who was back on her screens and desperately searching for the break in their security. She grinned unnervingly once she found it.

“We have a rat in our system.”

* * *

 

“Player?”

The hacker boy was so engrossed in what he was doing, his hands flying across the keyboard at mach speed, that he hadn’t heard Carmen sit up in bed until her voice reached his ears. He reacted instantly, nearly startling out of his chair, and spun around to face her with a bit too much of a forced casual air and a face that gave it all away. “Uh, hi Red, uh, what are you doing?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I just woke up. What are  _ you _ doing?”

“Nothing?” He squeaked. Truth be told, Player was a  _ horrible _ liar, especially to someone who knew him as well as she did. Her gaze drew to the screens behind him, the feed of code and a messy scattering of windows he couldn’t hide.

Ever so carefully, she stood, and gave him a sharper look. “Player,  _ what _ are you doing?”

He was caught red handed, and he knew it. “Uh, tormenting your former family…? Maybe?” He admitted, giving her a sheepish grin that came off as more of a grimace. Carmen gasped.

“Player, you know how dangerous that is! What if they track you?” She made her way to his side, looking over his monitors and then back at him with concern. “They won’t hesitate to send someone after you.”

“I know that, don’t worry. I’ve been careful.” The hacker reassured her, turning his chair back around properly. “Here, look. I’ve got like, six VPN’s running in a loop, and if they manage to bust through those, I’ve got it to look like I’m located on the island with them. Plus with their crazy security, they’ll believe it because they’ll think I  _ have _ to be there to crack in like this.”

Carmen blinked. “Okay, so you’re safe.”

He nodded. “As far as they can see, I’m either their own system, or a ghost.”

“I thought you couldn’t hack them before, though? You couldn’t see my location while I was there.”

“No, and I still can’t see  _ where _ they are, or any of their important files or anything. But that’s the super secret evil villain stuff, the building itself and their personal phones are a breeze to get into.”

His friend turned to look back at his screen. “So… What are you doing to them?”

Player grinned. “Here, I think I can get a video feed up.” His hands flew across the keys again, and after busting through a couple of popups that tried to tell him no, another window joined the other dozen. Unplugging his headset at the same time, the sounds of the faculty’s torment suddenly came through the speakers while they could see Shadowsan trying to pitch Coach Brunt’s phone out the window. Dr Bellum was screaming at her screens, Countess Cleo was holding her head like she had a headache, and Dr Maelstrom was trying to reach the speaker in the corner that was  _ still _ playing Despacito.

“Oh my god.” Carmen couldn’t hold back an amazed laugh. “You weren’t kidding about tormenting them.”

“What did you think I did before I became a professional hacker? Messing with people was my specialty.”

She chuckled again at his proud and vaguely smug demeanor, before sobering. “Player, I do need to ask. Why?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Why are you tormenting them? I mean, it’s funny, but it doesn’t exactly stop them from being evil or anything.” She explained, and Player looked away.

“It’s just,” He fidgeted with his hands, a behavior she’s noticed a lot in her recent time with him. “After everything they’ve done to you, especially that last time. They don’t care at all, they act like you’re the one that wronged them for not wanting to hurt people. And then Coach Brunt still has the nerve to claim she cares, or wants you back, when she just… when she tried to…”

The hacker’s voice was getting increasingly choked up as he tried to explain, his hands gesturing wildly as his words started to fail, and Carmen just lurched forward and hugged him tightly.

“I didn’t know it bothered you that much, Player. I thought those were my things to deal with, not yours.”

He hugged her back, albeit it much more gently considering her injuries. “Of course it bothers me, Red. I care about you.”

“And that’s why you feel the need to torment the people who have hurt me?” Carmen asked, chuckling slightly as she listened to Dr Bellum screaming about the rat she couldn’t find.

“Yup.” He didn’t even try to hide it at this point.

She smiled, and tightened her grip. “You’re the best.”

They stayed like that for a moment, appreciating their bond and the fact they had each other in their lives. Carmen was the first to pull away, and gave her best friend a devilish grin.

“Want to know how to  _ really _ get under Coach Brunt’s skin?”

Player’s eyes widened, and then his smug smirk returned to match hers. He gestured invitingly to the keyboard. “Please, feel free to share.” And she did, moving to type out her own karmic retribution under Player’s watchful gaze.

* * *

 

Back on the island, Coach Brunt’s phone had been successfully taken from her and thrown out the window only after she’d managed to send a scathing rant to one of the women hitting on her, and the speakers still hadn’t gotten knocked down yet, still playing that blasted song. As such, it was a relief when they suddenly fizzled to static and turned off, and the faculty collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is that is? Dr Bellum, did you manage to shut out the rat?”

“I don’t know. Everything just, stopped.”

There was another beat of silence, and then at once, the remaining two teachers’ phones came to life as well. One started playing a very loud video about gay rights, and the other started playing an audio book about a very stereotypical cowboy who was supposed to be Texan, but only a few lines in, Coach Brunt started yelling.

“That’s not a Texas accent! That’s _Georgia_ for god’s sake! It’s **_different!_** ”

And then the speakers came back.

_ “And today, we’re going to discuss why gun control should be enforced…” _

Needless to say, it didn’t take long for the rest of the devices to get smashed, all while a certain hacker boy and red thief laughed until they couldn’t breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: my parents are very, very Texan and that made it really easy to figure out what would REALLY bug Coach Brunt. I just had to use whatever annoys them, lmfao. Plus, I can totally see her as being the "gays are wrong, don't take away my guns" type of person.


End file.
